Picture your business with Pinterest

Pinterest is an emerging social media tool, which has interesting applications for businesses of all types. Catriona Pollard, founder of PR and social media consultancy CP Communications, explains what Pinterest is and how you can use it to help your business profile.

Pinterest - what?

Pinterest is a new social media site that allows users to create online boards to which they can pin images Catriona explains. “It’s an online pin board where you collect images that you like and that inspire you. You can create a number of different boards that reflect different interests and pin images to different boards,” she says.

As a service-based business, at CP Communications doesn’t have products it can highlight on its boards. Instead it has different boards to reflect the work the business does and who they are.

For instance, it has a board that showcases the charities it supports, a board that has images that use the colours of the company logo (red and purple), a ‘gorgeous’ board, which features cute animal pictures and a sunset board that has pictures of sunsets taken from the office, as well as a ‘CP in the media’ board and a ‘behind the scenes’ board.

“We also have a ‘happy dance’ board that has pictures of us doing a happy dance when our clients get amazing coverage. Now even our clients are posting pictures doing happy dances when they get great coverage,” says Catriona.

How you can use it

Catriona uses a catering company as an example of a business with a product that might wish to use Pinterest. “You might have a board that features produce that you use, or a board that relates to canapés, or one that features slow cooking or organic food,” she says.

“And if you have a wedding business you have to be on Pinterest. The majority of members are female and anyone planning a wedding will have boards that feature pictures they like of cakes, dresses and their honeymoon.” An example of a business doing this is Polkadot Bride.

It’s all about the language

If you’re going to use Pinterest for your business hash tags are essential. Whenever CP Communications pins to its PR and social media boards it will use #PR or #social media so anyone searching for pins on that topic can find their material.

“It’s also really important to have visually interesting photos because the more interesting they are, the more they will be re-pinned,” says Catriona.

Avoiding mistakes

Catriona says a mistake to avoid is to set up a board and then not post anything to it. “It’s also essential to have a strategy so that you understand what you will get out of being on Pinterest, who you are targeting and what they want to see,” she says.

Use tracking to build your strategy

And if you’re using Pinterest Catriona says, don’t forget to use the Pinreach tracking tool to help you measure your followers, which pins attract the most interest (so you can focus on building up these types of pins in the future) and change your strategy according to the feedback and data you receive.